Someone can’t get anything right. This blog was never named “Civil War Crossroads”; the address (cwcrossroads.wordpress.com) reflects the fact that “crossroads” as an address was already taken. She also got my job title wrong: her stalking me on the web led her to a rendering on an ASU website that is in serious error (these documents date from 2011). My correct title can be found elsewhere. Then again, this person confesses she doesn’t know her history, anyway, so why should this be different? But, so long as she spends her time ranting away, she’s not exactly serving the cause of “Confederate heritage,” now, is she? And perhaps that’s my secret plan after all. Now I have to ask my friends in Washington to start visiting her blog again. Shhh.

39 thoughts on “News and Notes: April 11, 2012”

I note that Connie is still turtling when it comes to Mr. Wallace’s challenge to her. She’s getting further and further “off message”. In hockey terms, Brooks, she’s looking over her shoulder for you everywhere on the ice. Keep up the good work, because while she’s down this draw the public isn’t being exposed to more Confederate/Southern/Fill in the Blank fiction masquerading as “history”.

Connie Chastain seems increasingly frustrated. Her own work hasn’t caught fire by her own admission, and her efforts to provide some leadership have been ignored. She’s be a good “worker,” according to Kirk Lyons. Not “leader,” mind you, but “worker.” Her efforts to take me on illustrate why … she just doesn’t have it. Susan Hathaway is far more effective (and she’s far more effective than the SHPG, the group Connie called out for being ineffective).

Connie needs to take her own advice and accept her secondary role in a “movement” that by her own admission has precious little use for her. She’d be better served by killing the public FB group and refocusing her own blog to talk what she wants to talk about, rather than doing what she does. However, she’ll never do that. She needs to feel important … which is why she talks about who visits her website. That it was simply someone clicking on a link on this blog seems to escape her.

I’ll continue to work on achieving a balance between dealing with some of the points raised by this radical fringe and the unfortunate consequence of giving them the attention they might otherwise not receive. But before folks go off on that point … as I’ve noted before, those exchanges draw a broader readership than other posts of more substance. It’s almost like watching ESPN’s First Take. People say what they say, but they also watch … including some professional historians who pretend to be above all this.

The real challenge, I’d argue, is for those folks who want to understand the Confederacy on its merits and are seeking a way to reconcile how they view the actions of their ancestors with achieving a dispassionate understanding of the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Their interests are being overshadowed by these exercises in “heritage” defense, and they find themselves being represented in the media by these extremists. Until they voice their own position as separate from that of this radical (and some would say lunatic) fringe, they will not be taken seriously.

I asked her a simple question: do you support the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Yes or no.

For like 200 comments, she couldn’t answer that simple question with a straight up answer. Then she accused me of “misrepresenting” her position. You know how that goes.

The reason she refuses to debate me on this website is because she knows I am just going to ask her the same questions which are litmus tests that prove she has been justifiably labeled an “anti-racist” and a “liberal.”

Her views are substantially Black Republicanism in their essence. Those views were anathema to everything the Confederacy was based on and she has wisely refused to engage me in any historical debate about the subject.

Her real views are post-MLK Baby Boomer liberalism that became mainstream in the 1970s. Far from being some kind of neo-Confederate radical, Chastain is more accurately described as a cargo cultist who immerses herself in symbols the meaning of which she is totally ignorant.

The truth is that the men who she claims to honor would be annoyed by her and would not reciprocate her affection.

This is easy, Connie. Which fact regarding secession as stated by Mr. Walace was a “lie”? What he called you out on was your misleading and fictional portrayal of “Confederate” heritage. He did it with a devastating collection of documented facts establishing that the entire premise of the Confederacy was white racial supremacy and demonstrated that your efforts to make “Confederate” synonomous with “diversity” are a wholesale fabrication. You turtled on that one, Connie. You disappeared. You later emerged with “Southern” heritage. To paraphrase another blogger, Mr. Wallace showed that your vision of “Confederate heritage” is galactically false and you never challenged him on that – because you can’t. .

Mr. Foskett, I invite you to find anywhere — that’s ANYwhere, ANY FREAKING WHERE — on Facebook or my blog where I have made efforts to make “Confederate” synonomous with “diversity”. Do it. Just try.

You don’t know what my vision of Confederate heritage is. You haven’t read anything from me describing my vision; you’re accepting the false version of it that has been filtered through the lying perspective of Brooks Simpson and Hunter Wallace.

I suggest you find out what MY vision is and base your comments to me on what I actually say — or STHU.

Whereupon Connie moves to shift her FB site to “closed” status, because she really doesn’t want people to know what she thinks.

John FoskettApril 13, 2012 / 8:35 am

Here’s just one example, Connie. Just one. I’ll leave the rest to Mr. Wallace.:

So they weren’t soldiers with ranks listed? So what? That doesn’t preclude them from being Confederates (is “American” synonymous with “soldier”? Of course not) — and if they were black, then they were black Confederates, weren’t they? YOU are the one saying “Confederate” and “soldier” are synonyms, when they certainly are not. You’re the one arguing disingenuously at best, dishonestly at worst.

What we are saying is, whoever served the Confederacy, including blacks, slave and free, should be acknowledged. Most of us don’t care whether they were officially mustered on some company roll or not — if they served, in whatever capacity, they should be acknowledged. People like you and Levin can’t stand that notion, for some reason.

You will find that we have been celebrating Confederate History Month 2012 by exploding this particular fantasy. I’m thinking about using this self publishing technology that Connie talks about to publish a book to discredit the Rainbow Confederates.

By the way, Mr. Vogl’s tract raises an interesting question – what, exactly, is “Southern blood”? Does the Red Cross now have to start collecting and storing it? And do they have to screen for, um, “mixing”?

Well, if you’re a literalist, which South-bashers tend to be, you likely won’t understand figurative language and metaphor…..

2. the vital principle; life: The excitement had got into the very blood of the nation.
3. a person or group regarded as a source of energy, vitality, or vigor: It’s time we got some new blood in this company.
13. kinship, stock, family.

However, in the article in question, Mr. Vogl means it in the sense of definition 13 — descendants of Confederates. One does have work to purposely to not understand that.

Are you suggesting they’ll need to implement a Confederate system of blood quantum? Or would the one-drop rule still apply regardless?😉 I suspect that if they started screening, more than a few of ’em would be disqualified as being “impure.”

Now you are blaming others for your own fumbling with language. No wonder your “books” have not captured the imagination of the Southern heritage folks. They’re simply not very good. That may explain why they don’t capture anyone else’s attention, either.

MikeD, YOU are the one suggesting implementing a Confederate system of blood quantum and then dishonestly attempting to attribute it to me. Neither I nor Mr. Vogl suggested anything of a sort. He is using the term “blood” as a metaphor for “descendant.”

Stop being paranoid and silly. My comment wasn’t even directed at you, which you would realize if you looked at the indents instead of egotistically attempting to play the misunderstood martyr. My reply was a tongue-in-cheek aside to John Foskett’s comment on the ridiculous assertion of the existence of “Southern blood.”

Talk about prickly. As my *very* southern great grandma would’ve said, “Y’all must be guilty!”

Heck, Connie, you babble on about history, and it’s clear you haven’t read a history book, so if Buck wants to dismiss what passes for your writing without reading it, I don’t see that you should have a problem.

I think Connie’s reassessing how she handles her web presence. For example, she’s “closed” her FB group. It’s evident that she’s learned that sharing her views publicly does her no good and embarrasses the Confederate “heritage” movement.